


Sherlock, Actually...

by NepturnalHarianne



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Bored Sherlock, Embarassed John, Gen, Humor, Inspired by a Movie, John's dirty secret, M/M, Pre-Slash, Silly, not sexual though
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-31
Updated: 2013-01-31
Packaged: 2017-11-27 14:49:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,487
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/663241
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NepturnalHarianne/pseuds/NepturnalHarianne
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Why leaving a very bored Sherlock Holmes at home by himself after telling him to "do like the normal people do and watch a movie", is a bad idea.<br/>Expecially when you have an embarassing secret buried in your past and related to a movie...</p><p>Or, how John Watson's short-lived career as an actor became known in 221B.</p><p>(Post Reichenbach, but really it only alludes shortly to that)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Sherlock, Actually...

**Author's Note:**

> Many thanks once again to Enid_Black, that inspired this oneshot by telling me just where Martin Freeman acted before 'Sherlock'...  
> Un beta'ed and not brit-picked!  
> Also, english is not my first language - if you find an error please tell me and I'll fix it.

 

 

A golden light streamed through the windows of the ever cluttered living room of the 221B of Baker Street, lighting up the inside with a lazy kind of warm luminescence, so rare in the damp London.

The hour was slow and soft, scented with the warm tangy flavor of earl grey brew and accompanied by John’s own fingers, chattering ever-so-slowly on his laptop’s keyboard as he composed what would be the next post for his blog, and by the soft rustling noise of his own bare feet shifting.

It was perfect.

  

Except that Sherlock, the enemy of every quiet moment in John Watson’s life (for which he was so grateful at times and so extremely irritated at others), obviously disagreed.  


«John, _I’m BORED_!» He bellowed that from the sofa just as John was lifting his cup to sip, making him start and drench his laptop with tea and milk.

«Christ, Sherlock! Could you, I don’t know, avoid making me die of cardiac arrest?» His laptop decided, right as he was trying to dab it dry, to die on the spot.

With a frizzing noise and some accusingly bright sparks too.

«And just as I had forgotten about your presence, _for once_. Try to keep your voice down next time, will you?»

«And what would be the fun in _that_?» the posh deep voice resonated once again, still too loud. «I’m bored John! _Do_ something!»

«You could move from the sofa then! Maybe doing something yourself _would_ help,» John snapped back, irritably, as he unplugged carefully the laptop.

Better not to touch too near the plug, Baker Street wasn’t at the top as far as appliances, wiring and plumbing went and he very much didn’t want to end up electrically shocked to an inch of his own life.

Sherlock wouldn’t even move a thumb to help him if that happened, probably.

(Yes, John knew that wasn’t true. Or well, he rather hoped that that wasn’t too much true anymore.)  
 

«Moving _is_ boring, eating _is_ boring, sleeping IS boring, smoking IS BORING, experimenting IS _BORING…_ » His best friend’s voice rose up and up as his limbs flailed around – though the rest of him was still on the couch and decidedly unmoving. « _I NEED A CASE! Find me A SERIAL KILLER, John!_ »

And thus came the bellow again.  


By the time the echoes of the tantrum died down, John was dressed up and ready to go out, the bag with the laptop and all its frankly confusing wiring slung over his shoulder, he was even right in front of their flat’s door.

«Well, find yourself one, or, well, do something like we normal people do and… I don’t know, watch a movie!» The sardonic huff of breath at the suggestion was more eloquent than any huff of breath had any right to be.

He huffed right back before opening the door.

«I have to go and take this to be fixed, and you’re going to pay for it as it’s your fault.» The only answer to that was an annoyed wave of a pale, long fingered hand.

«Don’t destroy anything while I’m out!»

And then, without looking back, he closed the door behind him and jogged down the seventeen steps, and he was outside.

 

*****  


There was both blessing and misery in living with Sherlock Holmes.

The blessing was that you never knew what could happen in the mere space of two minutes, let alone two whole hours.

The misery was that you never knew what could happen in the mere space of two minutes, let alone _two whole hours_. 

 

So, when John found himself lining up at the computer store a little later than fifteen minutes after his rather dramatic exit from the flat, and his phone still hadn’t rung once, he felt oddly pleased and relaxed.

 

When that continued to be the case for the following ten minutes, the pleasant feeling started to ebb away to be replaced with the slightest hint of worry, because really, Sherlock could make something explode rather easily and there wasn’t even Mrs. Hudson at home that afternoon.

 

As twenty-five minutes without the slightest hint of a SMS became an hour, John nearly bit off the shop assistant’s head at one gentle remark about tea, laptops, the rather high incompatibility of the two of them and the fact that no, the guarantee did not cover those kind of incidents.

It made her oddly pliant to offer him a discount though, so John guessed that it was all right in the end.

 

That was why he caught a cab and hurried home, some fifty minutes after that, and crossed the threshold of the 221B only ten minutes later with a nervous and hurrying kind caution that he hadn’t felt since Afghanistan and the threat of stepping on an armed landmine.

The silence that greeted him and his new laptop (with all his old data on, thank you very much) as he climbed the steps was more unnerving that any bomb explosion could be.

What if Sherlock had decided to experiment on venoms – like he said he needed to not later than two days before – and had accidentally poisoned himself again?

What if he was late this time and all he would find was a dead body already in the grip of rigor mortis, where his bright, eclectic and eccentric friend should be?

The thought made images of Saint Bart’s roof with a lone, coat-wearing dark silhouette on top flash in front of his eyes, and his heart started to thump a little too hard and fast.

 

He climbed up the last steps two at a time, opening the door with a bang against the wall, and sagging in relief against the opposite one as he saw his friend huddled in the armchair in front of the TV, in the middle of what seemed a nest of scattered old and newer newspapers and books and DVD covers.

 

Everything was ok.

 

John knew very well that he was a fool for being so preoccupied, really, but how could you explain your heart that your best friend wasn’t going to disappear at a moment’s notice after too long a silence and a faked suicide?

Exactly, you couldn’t.

 

He stood on his two feet again, still clutching his new laptop’s bag and utterly ignored by the man in front of the screen, and he would have still believed that everything was going smoothly had the TV not chosen this time to make his own voice resonate out of it with an awkward chuckle and an “I’ll warm them up”.

John spun around to face the screen just as his own younger self cupped his hands around a firm pair or milky breasts.

«Wha- Sherlock, _where did you find that_?» He screeched.

Yes, he actually (and maybe that wasn’t really the best word to use at the moment) – he really screeched, his voice going embarrassingly shrill.

He absently noticed the thump as his hand released the bag, but he didn’t even flinch at the thought of his new computer making acquaintance with the floor early on – it would have happened sooner rather than later with Sherlock around, and he wasn’t nearly as worried about it as he was about that, that…  _thing_ being on display on their TV.

And about Sherlock watching it with such interest.

«I found it taped to the roof of the bottom-left shelf of your dresser,» the low rumble of his flatmate’s voice explained in a matter-of-fact tone.

A poignant pause followed that.

«Oh God,» John swore under his breath then, realizing what he’d heard: Sherlock didn’t sound bored, he sounded… _interested_.

Oh God, indeed.

  

«It was there because I didn’t want it to be found!» He shrieked again.   
He really needed to stop the shrieking thing.

«Really? You should have hidden it better then.» The dismissive flutter of the pale hand came again, timed at the ending of the so very, very awkward fake-sex scene.

John felt really, really relieved: That movie still had entered his nightmares during his time in Afghanistan, and that was saying something.

«No, I shouldn’t have, because that’s _mine_ , you don’t just enter my room and… steal my private things!»

He made to move to the player to expel the damned movie and be done with it, when he noticed that Sherlock had the remote in his hand and was already fast forwarding through the scenes, looking at the real-life him this time, with that same incisive expression that he usually reserved for murder suspects.

« _John_.»

And he even had the gall to make _his name_ sound like a fucking reprimand! How can you make a _name_ sound like that?

John supposed that it was a peculiar trait of the Holmes family, and if that was the case, he really, really, really didn’t want to meet Sherlock and Mycroft’s famous ‘Mummy’.

«You don’t care, usually,» Sherlock ignored his silent seething as he usually ignored most of everything else, when it came to emotion and having some sensibility.

Not that it grated on John’s nerves this much, usually.

«Yes, well, I care this time-»

«Is it because of your embarrassing role, because of your rather embarrassing performance, or the generally really embarrassing theme of the whole movie?»

«Sherlock-!»

«..because it could have been worse. Some of the other actors were even worse than you. Like that Judy.»

«That’s not the point-»

«Then what _is_ the point, John?» Sherlock asked airily, turning back to the screen with interest.

John couldn’t answer though, because his friend pressed the play button again, right the second in which his second scene in the movie started, around the eighty-fifth minute.

And how in hell could he do that, unless…

«Sherlock, how many times did you see this already?» He was aware of his own hesitancy, but he really, really needed to know.

«The whole movie? I haven’t seen it. The plot is rather hideous and I’ve been mostly interested in your scenes, those I’ve seen a few times.»

The answer was flippant and it made John feel really exposed, for some reason.

That and, well, the fact that his younger self was blabbering on screen basically _naked_ in front of his flatmate’s eyes.

«I- there’s a reason I didn’t want you… or anyone to see this, you know? I’m glad it never really rose to success.»

John shuddered at the mere thought, his life would have been ruined.

It was enough that Harry knew about the movie and sober or drunk teased him mercilessly with it, even going as far as threatening to show it every Christmas they spent together.

 

«John, I know.»

Sherlock interrupted his thoughts with a faintly amused and somehow softer smile.

«That’s not you, and acting couldn’t have been your career. You’re terrible.»

He gestured towards the screen again, without watching it this time. «I supposed that this paid your last year at Med school?»

John nodded, incapable of not showing his marvel at the man even when he was endlessly irritated by him, by his understanding and by his not-veiled-at-all insults.

«Why are you watching it then, Sherlock?»

«Well, it _is_ interesting.»

The infuriating man hit rewind and pressed play at the eighty-seventh minute once again as John bent down to retrieve his new and already battered laptop.

He heard Sherlock murmuring something akin to ‘You would have a scar on your shoulder now though, would you?’, and he ignored it as forcefully as he could, the thought that what Sherlock found interesting was actually _his body_ was… too much.

He didn’t really need to think about it.

He noticed the scene being restarted once again, as well as he noticed the faint amused smirk on Sherlock’s face.

Was he doing it _for fun_?

«I’m going to kill you sometime soon.»

«You wouldn’t.» The Infuriating Man chuckled.

Then, surely to play on his nerves, he rewound and pressed play for the third time in a row on _that_ scene.

That was the moment where Mrs. Hudson, still in her overcoat, opened the door to their flat with her classic « _Yoo-hoo!_ » and, without even looking walked in.

 

The scandalized and, yes, amused « _John!_ » followed soon after (and John asked himself when was it that he became the only sane person in his neighbourhood).

«Mrs. Hudson, I can explain-»

«Oh, it’s quite all right, John.» She went on without giving him the least attention, two red spots high on her cheeks but otherwise unfazed.  

«The next time you’re seeing a sex tape, though, remember to close the door!»

He shook his head but couldn’t make his protests known soon enough.

«Oh we will, don’t worry Mrs. Hudson,» came the serious if slightly bored-sounding reply from the armchair, as Sherlock turned to smile to their landlady, the movie paused to the rather compromising view of John’s head in the middle of a very nice pair of pale thighs.

Mrs. Hudson climbed happily down the stairs after that, no doubt ready to go and share gossips with Mrs. Turner of the next door, leaving a gaping John Watson in her wake.

«Do shut your mouth, John, It’s unseemly.»

«Shut my- _Sherlock_!»

He twirled around once again towards his roommate, and really he was doing that quite too often for a day as _boring_ as that one.

«Why did you tell her _that_? She’s going to think that we are a – that we’re going to _see other sex tapes together_ now. Not that that one is a sex tape but-»

«Well, would you prefer that I told her that we’d invite her, the next time?»

«What? No! But-»

He shut his mouth after that, his mind processing Sherlock’s words.

Sherlock was really precise with words and with their meaning, and he had said _the next time_.

Did he mean it like “the next time that I’ll watch you make a fool of yourself on screen”? Or had he implied that, were to actually exist such a thing as a John Watson’s sex tape, they’d watch it together…?

His expression must have been priceless, because that madman of his flatmate let out that amused deep chuckle of his, and as soon as John’s gaze met the other man’s eyes, he couldn’t stop it.  
He started to chortle too and soon they were laughing together, Sherlock still nestled in his newspaper-covered armchair and John supporting quite desperately his weight on the wall nearest to the doorway.

It was some fifteen minutes after that that they managed to regain a hint of their seriousness.

  
As soon as John had some of his breath back, he walked to the his armchair and let his weight fall down on it, under Sherlock’s steady gaze

«Well, shall we see the rest of … _it_?» He asked then in a long-suffering voice, receiving only an amused smile in return.

Sherlock then selected the first scene from the DVD menu and pressed play once again.

**Author's Note:**

> I hope you liked it! It's silly, really!  
> I just wanted to add that I, by no means, find Martin Freeman's acting in "Love, Actually" lacking - and that I in fact like the whole movie.  
> What Sherlock says about these two things is just that - Sherlock's opinion.


End file.
